Head In The Cloud...

Coming Soon...

 "To the cloud..." those fateful words ring out like a foghorn of doom as the boss learns a new buzz word.

We know we are in for a battle of epic proportions as he tells us for the gazillionth time "Leicester has set it up, they use it, it works, it's wonderful. It is the greatest thing since Bill Gates sat down in his garage, and put white text on a black screen and called it DOS!"

Yes, it's that time again. The new users have got to be created, and the management have come up with yet another fantastical, hair-raising idea to completely screw it up, make our lives uncomfortable, and confuse the users even more.

They have heard of this amazing new invention called 'the cloud'. A 'simple' solution to all of our problems. Actually it's a very complicated way to cause us yet more problems on top of the ones we already have. But there is no telling the upper classes of the bean counters; it's the latest thing. SO, WE MUST HAVE IT!

Look, Listen and Take Heed

As the phone rings for the umpteenth time one morning, all hell has broken loose as someone upstairs is having 'issues' printing. As expected it is our fault and not the fact that the printer in question is out of paper.

It all started when we sent out an email notification a few days ago, informing our users clearly and as simply as we dare, that our company's website and intranet would be down for half an hour, as some updates were being applied to the homepage. No other services would be affected.

Of course what the users read was: "We are turning every server off for the rest of the day, so that none of our computer services will be available. Once back on every problem you get will be related to this issue."

The Wild Goose Chase

As with every 'good' IT Nightmare it all started with a phone call.

"IT Support" I answer one cold and icy evening.

A tumult rolls over the airwaves in a heavily accented voice. The guy is talking so fast I cannot understand a word he is saying. I wait for the torrent to end, every syllable merging into the next. I ask for him to repeat himself and it takes a good four attempts to figure out that he is having little issue with his speakers. In other words: No sound. I was wishing my phone was having the same problem.

I try to get him do a few small checks, but another heavy incomprehensible sentence, is the clincher. Armed with cables and a heavy heart I head over there in the cold; head down to the wind and nimbly avoiding the black pools of ice. It was going to be a long night. Turns out this is was going to be a walk in the sun compared to what was coming.

New Laptop

"I have an appointment" a rather rude woman tells us as she barges through the door, laptop bag hugged to her chest.

There were three of us in the room and that's the first we had heard of it. Still, ever eager to satisfy the masses we all smile and offer our assistance.

"My laptop has loads of viruses" she says. "I spoke to someone yesterday."

We all have blank looks on our faces and we are all thinking the same thing about the "loads of viruses," format c:, die, viruses die!

Quality of Service

I get an email one morning from a friend who works at another site. She was having issues retrieving an archived email. This was a common problem at the time and just required a quick install of an updated client. We arranged a time when she would have a few minutes to phone and let me connect remotely to the computer.

It's 12:10pm and my friend phones. All I needed to do was connect to her laptop, install the update and check that she could open the archived email. Simples...

I ask her what her "pc name" is. Now we run a program called BGInfo. This pulls information from the computer; including the pc name, ip address, RAM, disk space etc. This updates every time a user logs on and displays it on the desktop beneath our corporate logo.

Data Restore

"Some of my files have disappeared" announces a lady on the phone.

"Disappeared?" I ask.

"Yes they are just gone" she tells me.

"Are you sure they haven't been deleted or moved to another folder?"

"Well I was doing a little 'housekeeping' yesterday" she confesses. "Can you get them back?"

"Where were they saved to?" I ask.

"On the server" she says.

"Which one?"

Restoring "LOST" Data

One day my colleagues and I received a visit from a young lad who had "lost his work" and was asking if we could retrieve his files from backup.

Upon asking where the data was saved he said "My USB Stick."

Sadly (I explained before my colleague stepped in) we don't back up users USB Sticks as it is not possible for us to do so. But I had some recovery software that may do the trick.

"Let me have your USB drive and I'll give it a go." I offered.

"You can't" he said "I have lost it. That’s why I want you to do a restore of my files."